An early election call would deserve to be punished

In politics when the forces of reason find their opponents to be difficult to work with, there is just cause for the forces of reason to work around those opponents by taking the dispute to the lay public.  Where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is considering an election however, he is doing so not because he faces any kind of difficult obstructionist parliament, but because parliament has been all too submissive to his own bidding.

As is predictable as the trajectory of the sun, the Conservatives regularly reject Liberal legislation and government confidence.  But with the support of the other parties, most of the Trudeau government's major bills have been passed anyways.  Last year the opposition parties partially caved to the Liberals by voting to temporarily grant the Liberals the months-long power of unlimited government spending.  As if the fact of the pandemic emergency had somehow made government budgeting worthy of being beyond opposition scrutiny, instead of making opposition scrutiny of budgeting all the more urgent and important.

The Liberals effectively want to return the favour to the already-submissive opposition by humbling them even more with a Liberal majority.  That kind of disrespect is enough to justify a punishment to the Liberals, but an election at this time is problematic for other reasons as well.  Although the majority of Canadians are now fully vaccinated against COVID19, those who are not yet vaccinated will plausibly be affected by the gatherings of people that the election campaign will entail.

And what about government legislation that is waiting to be passed?  Given the social justice purpose of the bill banning gay conversion therapy, you would think that Liberals would prioritize passing that bill over dissolving parliament for an election.  Apparently not.

Finally, there is a fixed-election date law in place that has more effect in paper than in practice, given that the Governor General may abrogate it and already did so on behalf of previous Prime Minister Stephen Harper.  Still, it would reduce political cynicism if Canada could have even one Prime Minister who could consistently respect the spirit of that law, as opposed to just the letter of said law...

Unfortunately, calling an early election anyways is likely to be of political benefit to the Liberals, simply because the quality of the existing opposition is so visibly terrible across the board.  Yet it needs to be stated regardless: an early election call by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at this time would be deserving of punishment.  Time to eat some humble pie, Mr. Prime Minister.

Stefan Klietsch

Renfrew/Ottawa